Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

1940; Some Notes on Love’s Poem, The Cricketer Annual , 1940; Early Cricket Prints in The Cricketer Spring Annual , 1941 and Frederick Lillywhite and his “Guides” in The Cricketer Annual , 1943. All are erudite essays; the one on Love’s Poem, for example, is a piece of historical detective work that pinpoints the date, 1744, of the match between Kent and an All-England XI about which James Love wrote his celebrated poem. These articles demonstrate Rockley Wilson’s deep interest in the history and literature of the game of cricket and the meticulous nature of his research. Had the history of sport been an academic subject in his day, he would surely have been one of its leading authorities. By contrast, he seems never to have written on contemporary cricket matters, except as a cricketer-journalist on MCC’s tour of Australia in 1920/21, about which more anon. (After his career was over, he also steadfastly rejected any suggestion that he should write his memoirs.) Rockley’s scholarship often surfaced in letters to his friends: one to R.L.Arrowsmith is headed “September 7th. Birthday of George Hirst and an anniversary of Cynaxa.” and another “October 28th. This should reach you on October 29th, birthday of Wilfred Rhodes and also anniversary of the murder of the generals in Xenopha.” Rockley Wilson’s weightiest contributions to cricket literature are his chapters in the Badminton Library volume on cricket, published in 1920. 38 They reveal much of the man. In a long chapter on bowling, which Neville Cardus described as “E.R.Wilson’s brainy masterpiece” 39 , Rockley traces the historical development of bowling and provides astute advice for all types of bowler, reinforcing his points by perceptive references to leading bowlers of his time in the game. A.W.Pullin, writing as “Old Ebor” said of this chapter, “It is the best, most complete and most lucid treatise on the art and craft of bowling which the bibliography of cricket contains.” 40 Cricket and bowling have much changed since the 1920s, but the Badminton chapter can still be read for enlightenment as well as for enjoyment. Rockley’s chapter entitled “The Art of Training Young Cricketers” is a more general coaching manual, dated maybe with its public schools context, but still highly instructive and laced with wise aphorisms. The chapter on “The University Cricket Match”, written with Hon R.H.Lyttelton, is A Singular Man 45 38 P.F.Warner (ed.), Cricket , The Badminton Library, Longmans Green, 1920. 39 Neville Cardus, Days in the Sun , Rupert Hart Davis, 1948, p.138. 40 Quoted in Irving Rosenwater, Rockley Wilson, White Rose , May 1998.